Oh, my stars and garters!

Escapers

It's only Tuesday and already this week has been weird, sad, exciting, and exasperating. Most of my computer time is work- or trip-related, so I haven't had much time to play Internet. I am very much looking forward to getting out of here, seeing some stuff, being illiterate, and maybe trying some ice cucumbers.

I plan on posting throughout the trip but can't decide if I want to do it here or make a separate site for maximum shareability. Not that it's been particularly family-unfriendly around here lately, though, just regular-unfriendly. Yeah, you know what, screw it, I'll just stay here. I'll post a link if I change my mind. 

Also, I just killed a mosquito on the first try: SMACK! Suck on some warm red DEATH, Skeety!

Those darned robots

I am having a little trouble finding information on some of the places we're going. Most websites have an English version, and while the translators often take the long way around to say something ("We hope it is the cool relaxation feelings you can enjoy with the hours in the bar of 16:00-23:30"), there's no doubt about what to expect.

A few sites, though, more than I expected, are entirely in Japanese. Those are tricky.

Google Translate has been helpful in that it provides the gist of things, but mostly it translates the words and leaves the grammar to fend for itself. This scares me a little; when I'm trying to figure out, say, what time a boat is leaving, I don't feel terribly comfortable relying on information like "We canceled the decision of the day and so we decided around 7:15 minutes, thank you for checking whether your flight is on the phone. Kume departing flights pm (14:00 departure) is April 1, 2006 to October 31 during the day, we become Tonaki through Friday only."

If we don't come back and are never heard from again, you can safely assume it's because we couldn't figure out how to take the ferry back to Naha.

Where it is at

It rained, a lot, so it's cool and it smells good outside. We have 9,000 things to do before we leave for Japan in less than two weeks. Most of those things are happy and fun, like pinning down itineraries, but it's still a lot. The thing that is stressing me out the most about the trip* is finding good walking shoes. I'm about to return my fourth pair tomorrow. I would like them to look good with shorts, skirts, and jeans and need them support my cantankerous feet, and I am running out of time to break them in, whatever they might end up being.

The thing that is stressing me out the least is finding things to do. We could burn our guidebooks now and be plenty entertained, I suspect.

I think I'll open my bedroom window for the first time in six months and go to bed now. Maybe I'll even put on some pajamas. 

*Ok, actually the thing that's stressing me out the most is that we'll either come down with H1N1 or that enough of our fellow Americans will come down with it that we get denied entry. But, jeez, don't tell anyone, okay? I know it's stupid. 

RIP TV

When Roone bought this TV in the mid-90s we made so much fun of him for buying such a giant TV. What the hell do you need such a big TV for, Roone, you gonna open a movie theater in your living room or something, haw haw haw (bubble bubble cough cough) haw haw.

Now, compared to the products of the flat-screen race to in-home ridiculousness, Roone's enormous folly looks like one of those coin-op black-and-whites they used to have in bus stations. (At least as far as the screen is concerned. The tubes and shit in back take up a solid quarter acre.) But Roone sold it to us cheap when he moved out of our old place, and for the price it was more than fine. It survived a lightning strike, for Christ's sake. The picture was sort of warped and blacked out in one corner for a couple of weeks, but it gradually righted itself and has been perfect ever since. We were kind of hoping it would last forever.

Until this week, when Eric turned it on and the picture flashed on for a second and raced away, far away, to the top of the screen and disappeared forever. You can listen to the TV all you like on this thing--it sounds great--but no one will be able to watch it again.

So for now we are using the smaller, older, and cheaper TV we had upstairs. That one is just fine too, except it doesn't have enough jacks for both the cable box and the PS2/DVD player. Plus it's developed this weird curve at the bottom of the picture that tells me that it won't be very long before we'll be in the market for something new and bright and hideous. Although it probably won't be nearly as big as whatever Roone has now.

Damage

I came across Tokyo Damage Report while looking for record stores and whatnot in Tokyo and found the tour guide hilarious and useful. I've been poking around the site on and off for a few days. Tonight I got sucked into the Ura Hello Work series, a regular feature in which the guy who runs the site translates interviews from a Japanese book about people working shady jobs. Basically it's a slightly sordid Japanese version of Studs Terkel's Working. So that's how I spent a good portion of my Wednesday night, and I don't regret it a bit.

Trashdance!

Choo and I attended Forklift Danceworks' Trash Project at Austin Studios on Saturday. A local choreographer convinced the city to let her create a dance performance using Solid Waste Services employees and vehicles. We saw street sweepers sweeping, a kick routine with the garbage trucks' automatic arms, a harmonica solo, prerecorded monologues from the guy in charge of collecting dead animals, a leaf blower dance, all kinds of good stuff. 

It rained all day, and we were afraid it would be cancelled, but it went on despite a hard, persistent drizzle--the organizers pointed out that sanitation workers did their jobs in all kinds of weather anyway.

The performance started at dusk, so the wet pavement bounced the vehicle lights back up and made the whole thing look probably 10 times cooler than intended.

The evening was loud, fun, ridiculous, and beautiful, and the drivers really made the whole thing with their energy and panache. I damn near teared up during the finale when they parked all the trucks in a big idling line and then started honking and waving like crazy at the audience. I love that kind of thing so much.

Oh, hooray.

The workweek is almost over after having barely started. Eric is home after nearly a week away visiting his mom in Florida. There is a choreographed garbage truck dance a mile from my house on Saturday. And I got to listen in on one side of the conversation as my sister fielded a phone call from someone wanting to host a Tweetup at the restaurant she manages:

XXXX Restaurant at XXX, this is Jillbert.

Hi, XXXX.

Yes, I know what Twitter is.

Yes.

How many people?

Okay.

Uh-huh.

Sure.

Animals?

Uh-huh.

Okay, uh, what kind of animals* are we talking about?

Oh. Well...

You have a permit for them.

Okay.

Uh-huh.

Of course.

Right.

Okay.

Haha, okay. 

Uh-huh. 

Well, I'm not sure. We have an outdoor patio...

Right.

Okay, when would this be?

I think so. What time?

Well, I'll have to check with the owner. If I don't get back with you within an hour, I'll call you back first thing tomorrow.

Okay, great. How do you spell your name?

*Wallabees, and maybe snakes, but on second thought, maybe not the snakes. It is apparently not a prank.

Block head

It totally does not look like it, but this vegetable garden-to-be took me most of the weekend. That is primarily because I painted the blocks with masonry paint so they'd look nicer and not wick so much moisture out of the soil, but still. The work crew two doors down replaced a roof, a retaining wall, 20 windows, and the siding on an entire house in the time it took me to get 10 cinder blocks into a tilty rectangle.

I just wish I could explain why I spent days painstakingly waterproofing cinder blocks only to turn around and half-assedly move some dirt around with the shovel for about 10 minutes when it came time to level the soil they're sitting on. That was a failure of patience and effort. The soil is not level. It is actually quite rumply.

The result is the blocks themselves are impervious to water, but the giant gaps under and between them are not. Even the laziest gardening methods require too much effort for me, apparently. I will have to find some sort of crap to shove in the cracks, I guess, and hope for the best. Maybe it will work like a charm and I will feed you delicious butter lettuce all winter long.

Sorry, square foot garden.

You just weren't doing it for me.

Nature videos

Cat cam

Armadillo cam

Cow cam

Joolie cam